This invention is generally in the field of medical applications of polymer fibers and particularly the use of polymeric nanofibers in tissue engineering, medical devices and drug delivery.
Polymer fibers have been used in numerous medical applications. For example, sutures are made of polymer fibers, either non-biodegradable polymers or biodegradable polymers such as poly(lactide-co-glycolide). Fibers are also woven or meshed to form wound dressings, tissue engineering matrices, gauzes and bandages, and drug delivery devices (where the drug is encapsulated within the polymers, and released by diffusion and/or degradation).
These polymeric fibers typically have diameters of 50 microns or greater, many in the range of 100 to 300 microns. They are limited by virtue of the inflexibility of the materials they are formed from. It would be desirable to vary the properties of these materials without having to modify the composition of the polymeric materials.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide new forms of polymeric fibers for use in medical applications, especially tissue engineering, medical devices, and drug delivery.